When God Burns Your Ships...

It’s hard to let go of what we love.

Have you heard the phrase, "Burn the ships?"  

It dates back to the 1500's when a Spanish explorer sailed to a new land. The story goes that once he hit land, he burned and destroyed all his ships so that he and his crew could not give up and get back on their ships. They had no choice but to press forward in the new place. There’s a story in the Bible that also shows this - when Elisha burnt his plow before he left to follow God. And in Isaiah 43:18-19, God tells the children of Israel, who are longing for Egypt where they were SLAVES, to

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” 

Sometimes, the new means God burns our ships.

I painted this picture last year.  

It's taken me a year to be healthy enough to share it and write about it.

By: Deon Sexton

It was done using a technique called “Fumage,” which basically means "painting with fire." You use flames and smoke to create depth and dimension, shadows and edges. Then you use different mediums to go back in and add details.  

For my Art class' Final last year, we had to pick an artist’s work we had learned about and recreate it, and put our spin on it. I had been drawn to Steven Spazuk’s “Fumage” from the moment we learned about it in class. And as a bonus, Spazuk often incorporates birds into his work! Birds have been special to me since my husband left. God has often filled my heart with hope through birds. I especially felt drawn to cardinals, specifically two female cardinals that would visit my porch every morning. When I researched female cardinals, I smiled to see they are considered to represent hope and healing. I definitely needed some of that! 

 

My painting is based on Spazuk’s untitled piece (below) with a woman rising up out of a Zippo lighter, birds taking flight as though they came from inside her. As soon as I saw it, I knew this was the one. I absolutely needed to recreate this piece and make it mine.

Painting by: Steven Spazuk

And I knew - I would mix the ashes of my broken marriage in with the paint…literally beauty from ashes.

You see, one of the most painful things that happened during my divorce was that my husband burned the book of all of the love notes and emails from before we wed. I love, LOVE, words and stories. So good words are like big hugs.

That book was one of my most treasured items. It chronicled the story of our love, of how God brought us together, of our prayers for each other and our journey. Of our dedication to each other and to God. And after my husband discarded me, he burned it and then he lied about it. Like so many other things at the end of our marriage, it was one more pattern of painful devastation followed by lies and gaslighting. I had to dig through the fire pit with my bare hands and find remnants of it in order to prove it. Finding those discarded pieces of something precious to me had crushed me completley. Crying beside those ashes is a moment I still consider to be THE moment I truly grieved the loss of the life I had known. Feeling led by God, I had scooped the charred pages and ashes out of the pit and kept them. 

Now, I would turn them into beauty and hope and healing. 

I would make this picture my own. Instead of the Zippo lighter at the bottom of Spazuk’s, which is very detailed and intricate, looks expensive and is more of a focal point, I wanted my bursting forth point to be a dark and damaged cheap, cardboard box that didn’t draw the eye. I wanted it to look crumpled. I wanted the girl in my piece to be victoriously raising one arm in praise. And I knew instead of the blackbirds/sparrows Spazuk had in his painting, I absolutely wanted to include my beloved female cardinal in all her muted strength. 

The first step was to prepare the paper. And then begin burning it to make shadows and shapes, using smoke and soot. The second step was to go back and paint in the details. The third step for me was to add the ash. Tears seeped from my eyes as I used my fingers to grind up the ashes from my love story, and mix them in with my paint.

The cardinals are where the ashes are. Not on the girl. Not on her. She had to let them go. They are mixed in with the wings of the cardinals. They are flying away into the sky. They are rising above it all.

 

I love the way it turned out.

God often draws my eye to this painting on days when I forget the truth of my story, when I get focused again on the box. Those birds of hope and healing burst up out of that cheap box, leading the girl to freedom. They are free. Born of fire and pain. But that pain is what opened the box and set her free. And that is what this painting represents to me. Freedom and healing. Coming out of something that I didn’t realize was so small and so painful and so cheap. 

 

As I have gazed at this painting this last year, I realized that I spent a lot of time in life focusing on the box. Feeling sad that the box was torn and crumpled. Sad that the box was not the place of safety I thought it would be. Wishing the box were different. Trying to fix the box myself. Trying to convince myself that I missed the box once I was out of it! Even trying to get back in that broken box.

I lied to myself for a long time about what my marriage really was, what it had become. I thought if I just kept the flaps pulled closed, endured the heat, kept everything inside the box, that it would be okay.  

Sometimes we pick the painful known thing over the scary unknown thing.

I didn’t know it, but the old stuff needed to be burned away in order for me to move forward. I NEEDED God to burn my ship.

 

This is what God revealed to me through my painting, and through this process.

  

God knew I was devoted and committed to that love story of mine. God knew I would keep going back to those words and promises in that old book, longing for them and living for them. He knew I would get stuck grieving for what had been. God knew I would stay trapped there in a story that was no longer true.

So, He allowed my husband to burn it so I wouldn’t go back. God allowed him to destroy it because it was no longer good or healthy for me there. Like Lot’s wife, and like the children of Israel, I would have kept looking back and longing for what God had rescued me out of. He had to burn it. I didn’t need access to it anymore. It was an old chapter. But it wasn’t the whole story. It was just a chapter. And that chapter brought me where I am today. It molded me into who I am today. Satan may have meant it for evil, but God has certainly already used it for good!

God knew I wasn’t strong enough to break free of that box on my own. So, He allowed the box to be set on fire, added heat to force me out, and gave me birds of hope and healing to carry me and sustain me like manna in the wilderness. 

 

Today, when I look at this painting, that dark box is small. Minute. It’s only a part of the painting. The girl and the birds, the beautiful colors, and the freedom there… they are the focal point. They are truly beauty from ashes.

And I like living in that space much, much more.  

 

Today, February 1, would have been my 20th Anniversary. I have struggled on this day the last two years. It was heavy and sad. Suffocating. Grievous. But I realized recently that those feelings only overtake me when I begin to focus again on the broken box. I want to focus instead on lifting my hands in praise and being willing to go wherever the God of hope and healing leads me.

 

When we spend our time trapped in what was, lost in what could have been, we rob ourselves of the beauty of the day.

Today is one more day that I have been out of that box that was killing me, suffocating me, and quenching the Spirit. God brought me out of it. And today, on THIS February 1, I have felt just fine. Today, on this particular day, I finally hung my painting up in my house. I put it on display, owned the truth of it and gave it its own space! It's right outside my bedroom door where I see it every morning and every night, to constantly remind me that...

"He brought me out into a spacious place: He rescued me because He delighted in me." 

Psalm 18:19